Category Archives: Arts communities
Ishmael Reed, Grateful Dead: Egypt
November 28, 2012 Ishmael Reed gets away with it. He is “a Cowboy in the Boat of Ra,” he says in the poem of that title. And he gets to do thisbecause Sonny Rollins has already set an example: Sonny … Continue reading
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: “Re Dis Appearing”
October 24, 2012 I’m getting ready for the World Humanities Forum, held next week in Busan, South Korea. So I’ve been thinking about Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, born in 1951 in Busan. She immigrated with her family to the … Continue reading
Jack Kerouac: Mexico City Blues
October 3, 2012 “The immense triangular arc from New York to Mexico City to San Francisco”: Jack Kerouac writes in The Dharma Bums. After two publishers turned down On the Road in quick succession, Kerouac went to Mexico in a … Continue reading
Street Scene: Langston Hughes, Kurt Weill, Elmer Rice
July 11, 2012 It started out as a play by Elmer Rice: a Broadway run of 601 shows, the Pulitzer Prize in 1929, the movie in 1931. Kurt Weill saw it in Berlin, both the play and the film, and … Continue reading
Literature to Film, Sydney 2012
May 30, 2012 May 28, 2012 was the centenary of the birth of Patrick White. Many of us from the conference went down to a special screening of The Eye of the Storm, directed by Fred Schepisi, featuring Charlotte Rampling … Continue reading
Jazz in Australia: Yusef Komunyakaa, Charlie Parker
May 22, 2012 I’m heading there later today, so I’ve been doing a bit of homework. Komunyakaa, of course: it’s so strange that I should be talking about his play adaptation of Gilgamesh at the University of Sydney, when there … Continue reading
Space Brownies: Alice B. Toklas, Brion Gysin, William Burroughs
May 16, 2012 Gertrude Stein was dead at that point; she had died in 1947. In 1952 Alice signed a contract with Harper’s to write a cookbook. Then in her 70s, Alice was not as quick with her pen as … Continue reading
Gertrude Stein: Pittsburgh to Paris
May 9, 2012 850 Beech Avenue, Allegheny West. A two-story house, 5 windows on its front facade, 3 on the second floor, 2 on the first. A modest house, middle-class, no more. I remember this, of course, from The Autobiography … Continue reading
Black Pittsburgh
May 2, 2012 I’ve been here before, but it hit me again this time, coming into the city at night. This has got to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The river and the bridges all lit up — there are … Continue reading
Black Mountain College
February 1, 2012 It’s a shame it was so short-lived. 1933-1957. Only 24 years. But maybe that’s the life-span one would expect from an entity like this: a mid-size player. That’s what Black Mountain College was. It didn’t have the … Continue reading